Ethnicity and language crossing in post-apartheid South Africa

Kamwangamalu, Nkonko M.

doi:10.1515/ijsl.2001.058

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…In 1994 South Africa introduced a new language policy giving parity to 11 official languages (English, Afrikaans and nine African languages). Since then, there is evidence that the use of English is growing (de Klerk 2001;Kamwangamalu 2001) and that Afrikaans is experiencing negative shift (Webb and Kriel 2000), mainly because of its association with the apartheid regime, and probably also because of the implementation of a national language policy which explicitly promotes multilingualism as well as the status and corpus development of the African languages in the country. Most recent census data show that there are about 6 million people who speak Afrikaans as a home language (Statistics South Africa 2011) which constitutes about 13.5% of the population.…”

Section: Afrikaans In South Africa and New Zealandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintenance, identity and social inclusion narratives of an Afrikaans speaker living in New Zealand

Barkhuizen¹

2013

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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This article reports on a narrative study which explored the language maintenance and the related identity experiences of an Afrikaans-speaking migrant from South Africa who has lived in New Zealand since 2001. The article tells his Afrikaans maintenance story, focusing particularly on identity and language use, as constructed during a series of three narrative interviews conducted over a period of six years. It is informed by recent discussions of social inclusion in the field of migration and sociolinguistics. A thematic analysis of big story data and a positioning analysis of a small story show that the migrant was successful at maintaining Afrikaans and achieving social inclusion within his social networks. However, based on the analyses, the article also suggests that the ways social inclusion interacts with language maintenance and the construction of self are dynamic and complex in migrant contexts.

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Section: Afrikaans In South Africa and New Zealandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintenance, identity and social inclusion narratives of an Afrikaans speaker living in New Zealand

Barkhuizen¹

2013

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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“…South Africans of Indian descent are a prime example. For many of them, ethnicity persists not with the maintenance or the active use of the ethnic language(s), but through other means such as religion, dress, traditions, and lifestyle (Kamwangamalu, 2001b: 78). My position, however, is that the case of isiZulu‐speakers is different.…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Coconuts” and “oreos”: English‐speaking Zulu people in a South African township

Rudwick

2008

World Englishes

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The pervasiveness of the "dangerous power of English" (de Kadt, 1993) has been variously discussed in the sociolinguistic dynamics of the South African context. By juxtaposing English with the indigenous African language isiZulu, this paper explores how such labels as "coconut" and "oreo" bear testimony to the intriguing relationship between language, culture, identity, and ethnicity in South Africa. Against the background of the unique sociolinguistic profile of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and by considering South Africa's inhuman history of apartheid, the paper interrogates the ethnolinguistic constructions of identities among isiZulu mother-tongue speakers in a township environment. Based on a triangulated empirical approach that combines quantitative and qualitative research methods, the paper discusses how subjective individual meanings and inherent emic categories guide participants' views of who they are in relation to languages (isiZulu vis-à-vis English). The study reveals, among other things, that English is a powerful device in the creation of ethnolinguistic boundaries between individuals in the investigated South African township community. While participants recognize the economic power of English, those that adopt the language as the main medium of communication are perceived as outsiders of the township community.

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“…When the apartheid ideology was developed, a colonial discourse that linked different indigenous languages to different 'tribes' or ethnicities was already firmly in place (Harries, 1995;Kamwangamalu, 2001). Developing this logic, which resonated with their own ethnolinguistic nationalism, the apartheid planners used the existence of different African languages to justify the separation of black people, not only from white people, but from one another as well.…”

Section: Language Ethnicity and Race In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The nine indigenous African languages that were added to English and Afrikaans as official languages in the 1996 Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) might have been neglected as official languages in South Africa, but they were developed and funded by the apartheid government in the artificially created ethnic so-called homelands (Kamwangamalu, 2001;Mclean, 1999). When the apartheid ideology was developed, a colonial discourse that linked different indigenous languages to different 'tribes' or ethnicities was already firmly in place (Harries, 1995;Kamwangamalu, 2001). Developing this logic, which resonated with their own ethnolinguistic nationalism, the apartheid planners used the existence of different African languages to justify the separation of black people, not only from white people, but from one another as well.…”

Section: Language Ethnicity and Race In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

‘They all Speak Your Language Anyway …’: Language and Racism in a South African School

Painter

Baldwin

2004

South African Journal of Psychology

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This article reports a rhetorical discourse analysis of learner perspectives on language diversity in a contemporary South African high school. Based on four group discussions with Grade 12 isiXhosa, Afrikaans and Engli~h-speaking learners, the analysis traces two interrelated clusters of argument. In the first, a liberal discourse of individual freedom and human rights is mobilised to argue against a language order where languages are made compulsory, or forced upon people. We show that this argument was employed inconsistently: it only extended to languages other than English. To understand how this dilemmatic use of liberal ideas was justified, we trace a second line of argument. This is the construction of English as a universal language and, consequently as neutral, necessary and unifying; a language of 'rational choice' for all South Africans. Based on these arguments, language diversity -or the formal recognition and empowerment of languages other than English -was problematised as both violating individual rights of choice and a public order characterised by the mutual and universal understanding afforded by the universality of English. Supporting English-only practices in the school was thus presented as itself a liberal gesture, allowing not only the continued racialisation of isiXhosa, but also a rhetoric of racial blame: isiXhosa speakers, when they use their language in public, were blamed for instigating racial tension and misunderstanding in the school.

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Ethnicity and language crossing in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract: This study examines some of the linguistic mechanisms that multilingual speakers in the new South

Cited by 10 publications

References 20 publications

Maintenance, identity and social inclusion narratives of an Afrikaans speaker living in New Zealand

Maintenance, identity and social inclusion narratives of an Afrikaans speaker living in New Zealand

“Coconuts” and “oreos”: English‐speaking Zulu people in a South African township

‘They all Speak Your Language Anyway …’: Language and Racism in a South African School

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